Its just laziness on the part of the ad agency. They don't have any ideas. Its a classic case of the big corporate guy taking from the creative underdog.

When you "borrow" something from someone usually you ask them first if its alright to take it. If you don't and take it anyway, then its called stealing.

I very much doubt that creative art director Johnny Leathers asked British artist duo Tim Noble and Sue Webster if he could "borrow" their shadow art concept for John Lewis.

When an ad agency gets creative credit and large sums of money for a concept "borrowed" from artists, then its a matter of economic gain through the means of creative copyright enfringement. It will be interesting to see if this unfolds into a case in the court of law.

oh for god's sake.
noble and webster weren't even the first people to do this.
they ripped the idea off Shigeo fukuda who borrowed it off the puppet artists at the turn of the century who nicked off the cavemen who made funny shapes on their walls not to mention fred eerdekens and countless others.
this isn't stealing.
it's a reworking of an old trope and a particularly elegant and relevant reworking at that.
'court of law'. jesus, there's enough precedent to suggest that'd be a massive waste of money. look what happened to mehdi when he tried that route and his case was a lot more clear-cut.
maybe shigeo fukuda will sue noble and webster.
anyway, at least the the publicity will help N&W flog some more old tat passed off as groundbreaking idea.

yes, it seems that copywriters and art directors 'direct' themselves as far as an art gallery and say 'yes, this is what I need - their work' not only webster/noble but saul steinberg is appearing that car ad now....